A floor drain such as provided in a shower must incorporate a trap to prevent sewer gas from coming back out through the drain. In addition it is standard practice for such a trap-type drain to be provided with a second inlet, as for example connected to a sink. Thus a single fitting constitutes the trap both for the drain which it itself forms and for another plumbing fixture.
German utility model No. 7,732,624 describes such a trap-type drain wherein the inlet can be set at any angle relative to a vertical axis with respect to the outlet. To this end the housing is provided internally with a downwardly extending skirt which forms a trap with an upwardly extending wall region above which the drain is provided. As a result the fitting is relatively tall. Even when a standard drain screen is directly set into the central part of the drain housing the arrangement has a height which is normally equal to at least three times the internal height of the outlet. Nowadays with a relatively small distance between a ceiling and the overlying floor this height is extremely disadvantageous. Furthermore, sealing the various parts of this structure to each other is a difficult matter. Finally, producing such an element of synthetic resin is almost entirely impossible due to the difficulties in molding the complicated shape. Thus the device is expensive to manufacture as it must be built of several pieces.